To Portugal

Hi everyone – back in London so I’ll upload all the diary entries for Portugal to the blog. Thanks for all the comments – it’s great to see you’re all reading it.

We set off on Wednesday, September 12, at 9am to go to Portugal. We caught the Tube to Kings Cross St Pancras and then a National Line train to Gatwick. I had planned all the connections the day before and it went surprisingly well getting us to Gatwick about 30 minutes earlier than planned. Gatwick is a very busy airport and security was much more intense than at home. We had to remove our shoes, which were put through a special machine. So we again had about an hour to 1 ½ hours wait before our flight left. Luckily as we were flying BA, Alastair was able to use his Qantas Club card to get us into the BA Lounge. Alastair spotted our first celeb (well perhaps celebrity) – Ronnie Corbett (who later got called for his flight after obviously failing to show!). The flight was delayed a bit because the staff were really slow at checking people in – it seems the online check-in system means they end up asking more questions at the gate! But we made up time in the air and arrived on time.
We sorted out the hire car, which proved more of a challenge for Alastair as it was a manual (I really couldn’t remember what I had booked as it was months ago!). But it was bigger than we had expected – a station wagon that easily fitted the luggage. We set off from the airport with Alastair having to really concentrate both on keeping on the right side of the road (literally the right side) and using the gear shift on his right side.
We stopped to buy some food in Faro at a shopping centre – part of which was abandoned and rather derelict looking. Impressions at the supermarket – although a lot of it was really just the same as ours or London’s there were some differences. The fish, fresh meat and bread were very different. In the fish section there were several large stands covered with huge slabs of salted, dried cod (apparently a staple in the diet). The fresh fish section was more like a fish market with a huge variety of fish displayed on ice on a huge open shelf. The meat was also being freshly prepared/cut to order by a butcher – there were some fresh chickens on offer (they looked like a whole chicken carcase with feathers removed). There was a huge amount of bread in big baskets. The other thing I noticed was an entire aisle of canned pulses – lentils, chickpeas etc – again apparently a staple.
The food was cheap (especially compared with England) – the bread for instance was only one Euro a loaf. The booze was even cheaper – the most expensive wine was about four Euros a bottle.
We chose a local red wine. We had a problem at the checkout in that the wine would not scan. We could barely manage any Portuguese and the poor lady had to use a combination of sign language to explain the problem. In the end the security guard, who could speak some English thankfully for us, got the person from the wine section. After a bit more mucking around, the guard explained that they couldn’t sell us the wine as its barcode had not been entered into the system! Alastair had to chose another bottle – the wine section bloke was busily removing from the shelves all the same bottles of the wine that we had originally chosen (the red wine we ended up with was very drinkable!!). The check out lady was also very sweet to the girls and gave them some stickers. When they said “obrigado” (thank you) in response and smiled, she also gave them a small backpack each!
We then set off to find Fuseta and our accommodation. We drove through Olhão – the outer part. It certainly struck us that this was not a very wealthy country. Although it was a main road, it narrowed to a goat track in parts and was badly potholed in other parts. There was a lot of graffiti in Olhão and a general impression of a lack of care.
We finally found our way to our accommodation – after nearly being run off the road by a local belting along the narrow track that led to it. He was in the middle of the road and we literally had to drive off the road to avoid being hit.
Our accommodation was great. It’s a white stucco old farmhouse (quinta) converted into a house and three apartments. It has lovely gardens with little ponds and a swimming pool. One of the owners Helmut speaks German and Portuguese while his wife Gudrun is also fluent in English and French. They have two dogs and a cat that like to spend time with the guests – just in case they get some scrap food.
Carlene